


Rarity

by CheerUpLovely



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Lazy Mornings, Season/Series 02, Too much fluff, Uncle-Niece Relationship, ceasefire, teeth rotting fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah takes advantage of the lack of violence in their lives to enjoy a calmer morning than he's used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rarity

For the last three months, Elijah had found that morning had ceased to be a peaceful affair and had become a mad rush to scramble into action for the day. Of course, none of them truly needed sleep every night, but the rest was always appreciated nonetheless. Especially when one had such a reason to remain at peace.

Elijah, in particular, had no desire to move. He wanted to remain in the piles of rich cotton – satin had always seemed a tad excessive for his taste – where the warmth held him away from everything that usually claimed his mind. Here, there were no concerns that plagued him, no cause for panic or disarray. This morning, his peace remained inside the compound, inside this bedroom – not his own – inside the very bed he was reluctant to leave. It wasn’t often that he could indulge in a slow awakening with the crack of dawn teasing at the window frame.

The bed, though not his own, wasn’t foreign to him. These pillows knew his outline better than his own did lately, but there was no complaint about that. If the cost of sleeping in his own bed meant that he had to sleep alone, and now that he’d come to re-experience the comfort of sharing a bed he had no plans to deprive himself of that. Now that the youngest Mikaelson was back in her family home, he knew that her mother wouldn’t stray far from her side and that bought with it the new acquaintance that Elijah had found with Hayley’s bed. Today he had no care of the date, nor the time. That would require raising his head to look at the clock ticking in the corner, or leaning over the body beside him to look at the smart phone on the side table. He didn’t fancy his chances at doing either without waking the woman beside him, and she seemed as comfortable as he was so he didn’t dare move save to breathe.

He could feel her closeness as if she were a part of him, surrounded by the scent of her shampoo, a berry hint that overwhelmed the bathroom with a rainforest-like humidity when she stepped out of the bathroom in the mornings. Despite their activities last night causing desperate need for a shower for the both of them, her hair was still soft and one stray strand was tickling the very tip of his nose whenever he exhaled. If he had the determination to move at all he’d have stroked the hair back into place, but the realisation bought about the sensation of hair already curled beneath his fingertips. On the side that he lay on, his arm was cradling her head, his hand holding it loosely to his shoulder so that his fingertips were resting against the very roofs over the thick curls that he’d run his fingers through at any opportunity.

Her hear was pressed tightly against his shoulder, though he couldn’t tell whether it was from his cradling of her head or the fact that her arms were both curled around his other arm. Were they not holding in him that way she would have had her head resting on the pillow rather than against the broad muscle of his upper arm. Her nose was pressed against him, and he could feel each exhale against the contours of his arm. When she would move ever so gently, something he noticed she did in her sleep, it was because her hands were unoccupied and she soon settled when they found his skin, tightening them around his bicep but with not nearly enough strength for it to be considered any kind of real hold.

His other warm was curled around her torso, winding underneath the slender hands on his upper arm and settling on her lower back, just above the most dangerous curve of her body. If she awoke with his hand any lower it would only end one way, and while that would get the morning off to a wonderful start – the first thought that actually made him consider moving – he knew that the hints of dawn spreading into the room told him it’d be interrupted before it truly began. They’d already slept later than they would usually be allowed, and to tempt fate by risking a moment of intimacy at this time of morning would only leave them both disappointed. The sound of a child’s waking cry was never far off whenever they found a moment alone together. Last night, however, the infant had fell to sleep much earlier than planned in the arms of her father, and Klaus himself had been the one to lay her in the nursery so they all might reap the benefits of her early slumber. For Elijah, his plans hadn’t involved sleeping and he’d been delighted to find Hayley’s plans coinciding with that.

She took another breath and her upper body pressed into his for a split second, which reminded him once again of the previous night – he couldn’t count the days that they’d last spent pressed skin to skin like this. It was a rarity, occurring twice in the early days of their relationship and not at all since Hope was returned to them. For all her vampire bloodline, she rose before the sunrise each day, and wanted all of her family to rise with her. The only grace remained that at six months old she did sleep through the night in its entirety, though Rebekah had been quick to inform them that her father’s unrest was more than hereditary as soon as the sun set.

Unconsciously, he tightened his arms around her and she moved with him, nuzzling her face against his shoulder a little more. If she was trying to get closer to him it had worked, and the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly within the mass of hair now covering his face. He could feel it now, that the moment was starting to end, this blissful early moment of stillness and brushing skin. He could feel her beginning to wake. He could feel it in her fingertips, which had started to move against his arm with a bit more feeling. The rhythm of her breathing was starting to change, and then he felt the fluttering of eyelashes against his skin and her muscles began to stretch out, pulling parts of her away from him.

Elijah let out a small moan of protest, tightening his arms around her. “Not yet,” he mumbled, his voice gruff and filled with sleep.

“Not yet,” she replied, her agreement a small whisper.

“Not yet,” he repeated, his face settling down into her hair again now that he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to move and their bodies were entwined again.

They were silent for a while; deep, sleep-filled breaths overtaking them as they enjoyed the lingering afterglow of a few hours rest after a long night of intimacy. Before long, however, Hayley was moving, her arms pulling away from him.

“Not yet,” he protested again.

“Hope,” she told him simply, a one word warning that before long her daughter would be awake.

“She’s sleeping,” he whispered, eyes still closed and arms ever tighter around her.

“Elijah,” she smirked, a tired laugh rippling down her back to just where his hand rested dangerously low. He put pressure on her back with that hand, tugging her against him in all the right ways to show that he had no intention of letting her go just yet. “We can’t.”

“Oh, we can,” his voice rumbled into her ear, shifting himself against her. “We should…”

“We should get up,” she protested weakly. “She’ll be awake any second…”

“Then we should be very quiet,” he dropped his voice to a whisper filled with temptation.

To seal his declaration he pulled his head back a little and directed his lips to hers. He loved their early morning kisses, slow and sensual, with a casual laziness. Slowly at first they brushed their lips together before he claimed them completely, placing his lips fully against hers. Excitement rushed through them, a strange experience that Elijah had rarely felt, and after a few gentle kisses he sought entry into her mouth and she parted her lips eagerly to him, despite her previous insistence that she needed to get out of bed, and allowed his tongue to clash with her own. Her hand moved from his arm, travelling to the back of his neck and tangling in the soft hair that grew there. His arm trailed from the small of her back to the back of her thigh, lifting her leg over his, and she let out an encouraging sigh of approval.

Hayley clung to him and whether it lasted a minute or an hour, neither of them really knew nor cared. All they knew was each stolen second of contact left them feeling as light-headed as it had their first time together. When they parted, Elijah stayed as close as he closed, watching as she opened her eyes up to him. Her lips parted to speak, when a small cry sounded from the next room.

They both broke into a small laugh, dipping their heads against each other. “I’ll get her,” Elijah offered with a swift kiss to her forehead.

He enjoys these moments, he thinks to himself, as he gathers up the armful of squirming child and whispers a soft good-morning to her as he cradles her against his robe-covered shoulder. She’s still half asleep, her cry more confused than anything else. Usually she’s woken by a strict routine they’ve already surpassed today, and it presented immediately with food or comfort. Today she is lazy, quiet as soon as her tiny head finds his shoulder and pliable in his arms. She didn't want changing or feeding, she just wanted to be held, and he smiled. Her mother and father get time every day to appreciate these small moments, but Elijah experiences them far less.

Despite his brother’s fears, he’d never usurp Klaus’ role of father in Hope’s life. That didn’t mean to say that he didn’t love her with every part of thousand-year-old heart as her uncle. He’d never be a father of his own doing, and never expected himself to be, but he had a beautiful, perfect niece and would cherish each and every part of her life. To think that their warring family could be bought together so simply by something small enough to be held in one arm.

He knew moments from now she’d be laid on the mattress, cradled between her mother and uncle as they enjoyed as much of this peaceful morning as they could before anything interrupted the calm, but for now he selfishly took a short minute to enjoy this. Ten years passes in the blink of an eye, a century in a blur, and Hope won’t remain this way for any longer simply because they will it. Before long she’ll be speaking, walking, undoubtedly talking back to everyone, given her parentage. The soft down of her hair will grow longer, into her mother’s dark curls or her father’s fairer waves. She will remain beautiful for as long as she graces this world, but she has but a precious few years to be young and he doubts far less for her to remain innocent to the violence their world.

But for now, there was peace.

And peace was a rarity to be enjoyed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to pad out the Haylijah category a bit, can you tell?


End file.
